Yeh man, thats what Im talking about. That reminds me of some classic Traveler 3 part adventures. They were exiting to read as a ref, let alone put player through. No chance the sequels will ever see the light of day?
There is a d20 series put out by Forever People Digital (?), called Opus. The series started with no source books or world books, just adventures. The adventures are the vehicle to teach the ref and players about the setting. What a great idea, no hours of pre-game time spend by the ref on reading the setting, and then trying to impart that cool knowledge to the players. How do you prep new players to a setting in an engaging manner without boring them? Handouts and hope they read them, monologue speel before, during and after the game, or learning about it on there feet, in game. I dont play d20, but Opus sure sounds interesting.
Nice to hear from you Keith. You must be due a holiday to Darwin soon and bring those notes with you.
Allan

Yeh man, thats what Im talking about. That reminds me of some classic Traveler 3 part adventures. They were exiting to read as a ref, let alone put player through. No chance the sequels will ever see the light of day?
There is a d20 series put out by Forever People Digital (?), called Opus. The series started with no source books or world books, just adventures. The adventures are the vehicle to teach the ref and players about the setting. What a great idea, no hours of pre-game time spend by the ref on reading the setting, and then trying to impart that cool knowledge to the players. How do you prep new players to a setting in an engaging manner without boring them? Handouts and hope they read them, monologue speel before, during and after the game, or learning about it on there feet, in game. I dont play d20, but Opus sure sounds interesting.
Nice to hear from you Keith. You must be due a holiday to Darwin soon and bring those notes with you.
Allan

Ken is quite correct, WotW did not introduce a new Goddess into the Pantheon. A cult had arisen that followed the orders of a woman who heard voices from beyond.

WotW was written as the first installment of a 12 part series called the Tapestry Saga, intended to span 20 years. Most of the adventures were to centre around an overarching plot-line that followed the rise of this new cult. However there were to be four adventures that had nothing to do with the main adventure butwere still intended for the same characters following the central campaign. If characters died, it was easy to bring in relatives and friends of the central cast to continue the main storyline.

The overarching plot was fully sketched out and the theme of all 12 episodes summarised. The first three adventures were written in detail. The plot-line was not provided in total in WotW as it was decided to provide information to the GM on a needs to know basis, at thae start. Once more of the plot-line began to have real impact on the game (around episode 6)GMs would be able to purchase a special background booklet from Columbia that fleshed out everything. This product was not going to be available in shops and the Columbia site was to advertise this as a 'secret' reference book for GM's of the Tapestry Series only. Of course, asa marketing tool, it was envisaged that many Harniacs, not playing the campaign would like to purchase this just to see what the secrets of the game where!

Sadly, Auran's relationship with Columbia broke down and the Tapestry Series was shelved after the introductory module. Some basic elements of the second module (the mystery at the monastery, the voyage etc) were used in the Auran d20 "Dark Awakenings" modules, although the fantasy element was ramped up.

Ken is quite correct, WotW did not introduce a new Goddess into the Pantheon. A cult had arisen that followed the orders of a woman who heard voices from beyond.

WotW was written as the first installment of a 12 part series called the Tapestry Saga, intended to span 20 years. Most of the adventures were to centre around an overarching plot-line that followed the rise of this new cult. However there were to be four adventures that had nothing to do with the main adventure butwere still intended for the same characters following the central campaign. If characters died, it was easy to bring in relatives and friends of the central cast to continue the main storyline.

The overarching plot was fully sketched out and the theme of all 12 episodes summarised. The first three adventures were written in detail. The plot-line was not provided in total in WotW as it was decided to provide information to the GM on a needs to know basis, at thae start. Once more of the plot-line began to have real impact on the game (around episode 6)GMs would be able to purchase a special background booklet from Columbia that fleshed out everything. This product was not going to be available in shops and the Columbia site was to advertise this as a 'secret' reference book for GM's of the Tapestry Series only. Of course, asa marketing tool, it was envisaged that many Harniacs, not playing the campaign would like to purchase this just to see what the secrets of the game where!

Sadly, Auran's relationship with Columbia broke down and the Tapestry Series was shelved after the introductory module. Some basic elements of the second module (the mystery at the monastery, the voyage etc) were used in the Auran d20 "Dark Awakenings" modules, although the fantasy element was ramped up.

While I've already weighed in on the side of having less accented words in Harn products, I'd like to make something of an argument about why Robin MAYBE shouldn't listen to us.

The creation, development, description, and presentation of Harn is an expression of Robin's creativity. It's art. While the commercial value of this art is an important aspect of it, it's not the only aspect. Indeed, if it were, Harn wouldn't exist as we know and love it. Robin would have focused on appealing to the masses instead of his own sense of what HE wanted to see. We'd have some version of the Forgotten Realms instead of Harn. Accents and foreign language words are along these lines I think. They make it harder for me, as a game player and a person that likes to imagine myself (well an alter-ego at least) in these places. It makes the world a bit less accessible to me.

On the other hand, Kethira isn't just a game world and it isn't being designed for ME. It's a fictional, fantastical setting that can be used for all sorts of purposes and it's being designed as Robin's expression of creativity. There may be aspects of it that I don't like. I'm free to change them. Sometimes those changes take a bit of work on my part and having to make them makes the setting harder for me to use for my purposes.

Robin simply needs to guess (and that's all he can really do) on the financial impact of the decision to keep accents in Harn products, and then determine if that's worth compromising his artistic vision for. Maybe it is (I hope so). Maybe it isn't. Only he can really tell.

No, there is no island with a lake on the lake. But Greyhawk's 'Nyr Dyv' is also known as 'The Lake of Unknown Depths.' The map shows the lakes underwater contours! However, the copy I've found does not indicate what the contout intervals are, so I suppose they can still call it the lake of unknown depths ;)

No, there is no island with a lake on the lake. But Greyhawk's 'Nyr Dyv' is also known as 'The Lake of Unknown Depths.' The map shows the lakes underwater contours! However, the copy I've found does not indicate what the contout intervals are, so I suppose they can still call it the lake of unknown depths ;)

I think they not only look nice, they help ensure people know how to pronounce unusual words properly.

I actually have a different concern - the lack of use of English terms to describe features on maps. I think "mountains", "hills", "sea", etc should be used rather than "local" language(s). This problem will become more prevalent when we deal with multi-lingual areas...

At the very least we should provide both English and *local* labels.

A by-product of greater use of English descriptive labels is a reduced use of accents...

A comment on your article. I agree for the most part about contours however I don't know if terrian shading is really clear enough to do the job. I think your original scheme of using fill for terrain was an excellent compromise and still a better one than relief shading.

The other approach I think would be good (I forget the style's name) is the hatching (?) used on many military maps in the 19th century and in text books today. It has some of the advantage of contour maps without the hassle of picking a contour scale and having to draw every dame line in.

The main problem I see with that style is the hatching itself being so dark would not easily allow other colors to be drawn on top of it (or under). Perhaps with the alpha channel/transparency avaliable that can be overcome.

A comment on your article. I agree for the most part about contours however I don't know if terrian shading is really clear enough to do the job. I think your original scheme of using fill for terrain was an excellent compromise and still a better one than relief shading.

The other approach I think would be good (I forget the style's name) is the hatching (?) used on many military maps in the 19th century and in text books today. It has some of the advantage of contour maps without the hassle of picking a contour scale and having to draw every dame line in.

The main problem I see with that style is the hatching itself being so dark would not easily allow other colors to be drawn on top of it (or under). Perhaps with the alpha channel/transparency avaliable that can be overcome.

It bugs the snot out of me to see people gossiping one one of the message boards about products which may or may not ever see the light of day.

If something is in on clear course towards publication, and one can even make a half decent guess when publication will occur (particuarly if it's in the next 2-3 months), then that's fine. In that case I don't have much trouble with mentioning that it's coming out.

Otherwise, I think it does a dis-service to both KP and to the consumer to be talking about products which are nowhere near publication, assuming that they are even on course to being published.

I'd cite as particularly problematic one kingdom article which has been "under development" for more than a couple years and which several times saw active discussion on the HarnForum. Talk about raising unreasonable expectations, that one was doing so.

I find the accents a major pain in the posterior when working on canon material.

It also bugs the heck out of me when I look at KP canon and find inconsistent accenting. For example, look at the Chel-Gelt A.K. map folio and check out the accenting on "Jarind". It's not the same throughout.

Although I am not doing much in the way of working on canon of late, I will note that in the one major project that I was working on late last year and early this year, I deliberately went in and wiped all the accents. It made my life a lot easier afterwards.

In my local area we started Harn without any knowledge of pronunciation. And we have since discovered that many words are mis-pronounced, but its so ingrained that if someone started saying them correctly now, we would not understand what was being said. Even though it adds to the feel of a high class setting, for the linguistacly challenged its a put off.

In my local area we started Harn without any knowledge of pronunciation. And we have since discovered that many words are mis-pronounced, but its so ingrained that if someone started saying them correctly now, we would not understand what was being said. Even though it adds to the feel of a high class setting, for the linguistacly challenged its a put off.

I think that accents in the text itself (including headings) and on maps and such are somewhat distracting and make reading more difficult (which is never a good thing). I also believe that they have quite a negative impact on writing speed. However, I agree that guidelines on pronunciation are very useful.

I agree with Ken that we should leave accents off the actual text (and maps) of future products and instead add pronunciation guides to all products. Those would NOT ONLY feature accents but also phonetic spellings (like in HârnPlayer).

While I find accents *do* help me grok the sound of the names and so on, it concerns me that many folk find them a turn-off.

A glossary of pronunciation has been suggested, but I can't help feeling that this is something technology ought to be able to solve. Is there some way that PDF documents can be generated such that, through switchable fonts or some such, the reader can turn accents on or off?

While I find accents *do* help me grok the sound of the names and so on, it concerns me that many folk find them a turn-off.

A glossary of pronunciation has been suggested, but I can't help feeling that this is something technology ought to be able to solve. Is there some way that PDF documents can be generated such that, through switchable fonts or some such, the reader can turn accents on or off?